Saturday, 12 September 2009

Mysterious needle attacks have spread to new cities in Xinjiang, officials in the restive, far-western region confirmed yesterday, although once again the assaults appear to be a mix of the real and the imaginary.

Born to a Chinese mother and a black American father, the 20-year-old Shanghai Theatre Academy student was the major draw in successive appearances on a Shanghai TV talent show Let’s Go! Oriental Angel that began airing in June. But the audience was not as interested in her performances as her unusual complexion and mysterious life story.

President Barack Obama on Friday slapped punitive tariffs on all car and light truck tires entering the United States from China in a decision that could anger the strategically important Asian powerhouse but placate union supporters important to his health care push at home.

The mainland economy continued to recover last month as the expansion in industry and retail sales accelerated while capital investment maintained its strong momentum, official data released yesterday shows.

Professor Chen Fang-ming, a Taiwan literature expert from the National Chengchi University, said that Chen’s worst crime was not graft but how he made the Taiwanese lose their faith in fairness and justice by his lack of contrition and denials of guilt.

Chen Shui-bian and his wife Wu Shu-chen could be expected to mount a vigorous fight against the life sentences handed down to them yesterday but any decision by Taiwan’s highest court was years away, top lawyers say.

The trial of former Taiwanese president Chen Shui-bian may have caused a rupture in the pro-independence “green camp”, but it heralds a new stage in the island’s democratic and judicial development, analysts say.

Jim Rogers, an American investor and financial commentator based in Singapore who has been paying close attention to the Asian market, sees that in the past 10 months, A-shares values have doubled, but predicts that there will be a negative change in September-November. He adds he would neither buy nor sell shares at present, points out that in the next 20 years agriculture will be a very promising industry in China, and suggests that everybody play the role of “farmer.”

Since May, real estate enterprises with central enterprise background, and even non real estate firms, have begun to enclose lands, resulting in big changes in the land market. The increasing land prices are leading to skyrocketing housing prices and attracting official attention.

Greed and opportunity ensure that so long as free markets exist, unscrupulous insiders will be tempted to find ways to profit at the expense of honest investors, whatever the risk. But if anyone has yet to get the message that Hong Kong now treats as criminals those who trade with the benefit of inside information, they no longer have any excuse. Yesterday’s conviction of former Morgan Stanley Asia managing director Du Jun should ram it home.

Investors who sold shares in Citic Resources Holdings to Du Jun, not realising he was acting on insider information, could receive compensation if the Securities and Futures Commission succeeds in a landmark legal action.

A chink of light this week greeted petitioners - the desperate thousands who defy police and party to reach administrative centres and ultimately Beijing to get perceived wrongs righted. The Supreme People’s Court announced it would hear petition cases concerning wrongful or unfair court judgments.

Thursday, 10 September 2009

OCBC Securities Pte Ltd (OSPL) is expanding its direct market access (DMA) to seven more foreign stock exchanges in China, Indonesia, Thailand and the US by the end of this month, bringing the network to 11 stock exchanges.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore has published the first set of new rules that it plans to implement to change the way financial institutions here treat customers in response to the recent scandal over mis-selling in the industry.

China’s mainland-listed companies look set to avoid an earnings decline this year after strong second-quarter results, spurring analysts to raise their forecasts to a flat performance from a 10 per cent drop.

The No. 2 police officer in Chongqing has been detained and placed under investigation as part of a sweeping clampdown on triads that has brought down hundreds of officers in recent months, a Hong Kong newspaper reported.

The troubled far-western city of Urumqi has spelt out potential punishments for spreading rumours after days of sometimes deadly unrest and panic about reported syringe attacks that have fanned ethnic tensions.

The central government and foreign banks are threatening legal action against each other in an escalating row over ballooning losses racked up by state-owned airlines which ran into the red on derivatives contracts.

Last year’s commodity price plunge caught a number of Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) flat-footed and they suffered huge losses in fuel hedging derivative trading with international investment banks. Both the SOEs and regulators are straining to explain the debacle, and there are even indications they are inclined to blame fraud and/or conspiracy by foreign investment banks.

Asia’s initial public offering market is booming as economies inch out of recession and equity markets improve, setting the scene for the region to emerge as the world’s top spot for firms rushing to raise money.

Companies listed on Singapore Exchange are required to prepare their financial statements in accordance with the US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) or the local equivalent of IFRS, the Singapore Financial Reporting Standards (SFRS).

Fair competition or save the planet? That could ultimately be at play as China and the West, long at odds over trade in steel, textiles and car parts, risk being sucked into a row over protectionism in renewable energy equipment such as solar panels.

“Bubble” may be the word on everyone’s lips when talking about spiralling housing prices on the mainland, Hong Kong and Singapore, but contrarians believe these fears are overblown and prices have yet to peak.

The sacking of Urumqi’s Communist Party Secretary Li Zhi yesterday, a rare move in response to public protests, reflects the gravity of the situation facing the central government in Xinjiang. Five people have been killed and scores injured in mass rallies triggered by Han Chinese who are angered at a failure by provincial authorities to secure their safety amid a wave of terrifying attacks with syringes.